Crushing the Challengers (2)
Alright, ban-pick for Game 1 is complete.
P1 locks in Kalista top. Hahaha — now I really want to see what Jimin can do with her.
“·····”
Park Jimin, who had been sitting with his eyes closed, opened them.
Nine times.
Win today’s Round 2 match, win the winners’ bracket match, win the finals — and they were champions. Blow up nine opposing nexuses, and it was over.
The end of a Spring Season whose preparation had been genuinely grueling.
If it ends, that is.
The timeline he’d been told in advance was one year. But that window might close sooner than expected.
Conquer the Challengers tournament, then join the first team as fast as humanly possible.
It was a difficult road — but the goal was so clear there was no room for hesitation.
Which team heads to the winners’ bracket? Game 1 — let’s get it started!
“·····”
From the very start, Jimin’s Kalista was hammering Renekton with relentless pressure.
Kalista top was a duel against the enemy top laner and, just as much, a duel against their jungler. Under the team’s game plan, his mission was to twist the early designs of the opposing Renekton and Rek'Sai as hard as he could.
How do you see both teams’ drafts?
If this goes late, Gen.G Gaming — with Orianna and Kai'Sa — will have things to say. But the real question is whether they can even survive to that phase.
Gen.G’s comp has a lot of tools to punish anyone who walks up carelessly, so P1 needs aggressive play that stays precise. The biggest variable is Jimin’s Kalista pick. If it works, he can shove their top laner into the ground forever. If it doesn’t, he can get erased from the Rift entirely.
Exactly. Still — this is the Challengers Spring MVP we’re talking about. They’re trusting Jimin’s carry power, and that’s probably why they locked it in.
P1’s bot duo had taken a huge early skirmish win and were already looking ahead.
Hold on — what is that movement from Rapid?
That almost looked like he baited Nautilus’s hook on purpose.
Even for a draft built around early advantages, P1 was pulling ahead in global gold at a blistering pace.
Oof.
Ohhh—!
Before anyone realized it, Kalista had built a winning lane state and unleashed a rain of spears. She landed a minion-piercing Pierce, danced in to trade, and Renekton’s health bar melted in an instant.
Rek'Sai might want to go teach Kalista a lesson top, but with Renekton’s HP that low, it’s not an easy path.
And Shake’s been helping secure vision on the top side. Ah — this is already getting scary.
Renekton dodged Kalista’s spears and backed under tower. All that did was accelerate a CS gap that had already been widening. It was pure survival thrashing — just enough to avoid giving up a kill and letting his tower gold get farmed for free.
Rek'Sai wants to path top, but — yeah, exactly, it’s meaningless.
Kalista’s items are already starting to come online.
The textbook answer for punishing Kalista top was a jungle gank. Superior trades and strong performances on the other lanes had twisted that answer into a dead end.
Aaaaagh!
If that Draven ultimate had hit and Kai'Sa popped for the passive gold — this game would’ve been almost over already.
P1’s signature bot lane. Absolutely oppressive.
And top — aaaaaaah!
“Waaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”
A roar erupted from the fans under P1’s one-sided assault. Renekton had activated his ultimate, Dominus, and charged Kalista — only to become a corpse.
Solo kill! Kalista takes the solo kill!
Hold on — if it just ends up like this—
Let’s watch the replay.
Ah·····
Right here Renekton pops Dominus, but — he doesn’t connect. She’s kiting away, and then the Rend.
Soldier — yeah, that’s just rough.
People say you can just survive the lane, but if you only wanted to survive, you wouldn’t have picked Renekton!
P1’s versatile ban-picks, and Jimin’s champion pool that can actually play them. It’s just too much.
The snowball was rolling fast. P1 had zero interest in giving the late game any variables.
Scanner’s going in.
Renekton has no Teleport, right?
The hellish laning phase continued. P1’s jungler Scanner closed in on the Renekton stuck top.
The moment the jungler approached, Kalista unloaded every scrap of damage she had. Renekton had been trying to hold — he couldn’t. Scanner followed up right behind.
Yeah, he’s dead.
P1!
This game just exploded.
I can’t let my guard down.
Jimin was clearly stomping top, and the bot duo was nuking bot lane too. But once you’d locked Kalista, you couldn’t relax until the nexus was gone. This was a tournament — the enemy top couldn’t just tilt and spam surrender.
Enemy Kalista top, bot lane blown up, mid could toss an Ezreal ult at any moment — this game is brutal for their jungler.
That Kalista pick really twisted the entire game plan.
The laning phase was winding down.
Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!
The top tower fell to Kalista. She had already vacuumed up every scrap of tower gold.
The question is how long Gen.G can keep turtling.
The one bright spot is that for all the suffering bot, Draven never actually collected a kill.
Ah — and they give up Herald.
P1 took the Rift Herald for the siege. Gen.G, already convinced any fight right now was a free loss, curled into a ball.
What even are Kalista’s items right now?
Gen.G has to somehow look away and ignore her.
Kalista was nearly two full item cores ahead of Renekton. Herald smashed mid tower, P1 wiped every first tower off the map, and they kept driving the tempo of the game.
Nautilus and Rek'Sai are moving.
Too late.
Jimin judged that he had stepped in too deep. A mistake this time — but he couldn’t just throw the play away.
Orianna’s Shockwave cut Ezreal’s Teleport.
“·····”
Oh — Kali’s going forward!
In that instant Kalista surged ahead and hurled her spears at Renekton. Flash, spacing, the brush — she used everything to dodge and deal damage.
But surviving against those three champions was impossible.
Yeah — with those three there, how is Kalista supposed to take anyone with her?
I jumped for a second there.
Ohhhhhh!
Even as she died, the fully fed Kalista used Rend one last time and had already shredded Renekton’s HP.
Aaaaaaaaaaaah!
“Waaaaaaaaaaaaah!”
Draven’s ultimate axe flew from mid all the way to bot and slammed into Renekton. His body burst, and a mountain of gold poured onto Draven’s head.
Passive gold just exploded!
How much gold was that even?
Did Jimin play for that too?
How many moves ahead was that?
Kalista for Renekton. Rek'Sai pocketed the bounty gold, but looking at the gold Draven had just absorbed, Gen.G could only feel despair.
They cannot give up the fourth dragon.
It’s Hextech — it helps with kiting.
But honestly, looking at Kalista and Draven’s items right now… this doesn’t look like a conversation they can have.
In a standoff, Jimin hopped the wall into the dragon pit and faced the enemy down.
Skills flew at Kalista. She danced through them. Then Renata’s ultimate dropped to save her, and Ezreal dove in.
Double kill! Triple kill!
Gen.G’s champions detonated under Draven’s overwhelming damage. Kalista, who had clawed out of the jaws of death, joined the chase.
Ace! The gold lead is just absurd.
To even try to fight this, Kai'Sa needed four items. This game is over.
P1 took Baron and marched. Gen.G couldn’t even imagine holding them.
Whoa — Kalista, Kalista!
The bomb necklace!
In front of the twin nests, Kalista walked forward and dealt damage. She should have died — but Renata’s skill turned her into a zombie, and securing a kill to revive was child’s play.
Kalista just won't die!
GG!
Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!
P1·····
They're strong.
“What even was that at the end.”
“I was trying to close it fast.”
“I picked stage presence and didn’t even get to show damage, man.”
Kang Jun grumbled at Jimin. The grand finale should have belonged to him — the bot laner who’d grown so proudly — not a top-lane marksman.
“Kalista was good all the way through.”
“But getting caught mid-game was a little disappointing.”
“If they catch Kalista, that can happen.”
P1 Academy’s coach, Kim Hyeonjin, smiled as he welcomed the team back. A multi-game series opener that could have been tense — and they had executed the game plan perfectly and taken the win.
Lucian, Lucian!
It hurts! It hurts!
Game 2. P1 had pulled out Lucian-Nami bot and were showcasing the power of a fully stacked Lucian in mid-game fights.
Sion just will not go down!
Jimin had locked in the tank Sion. Through elite early CS numbers and teamfight impact, he had grown massive — and the enemy still looked a long way from assembling the items to crack him open.
GG!
P1’s champions slaughtered the enemy in their own fountain.
P1 takes Game 2 without even hitting the thirty-minute mark!
Gen.G Gaming needs to find answers.
Jimin playing the lane like that on Sion of all things… hahaha.
Picking a tank and still making the opponent live in fear of solo kills. Absolute top-lane dominance was handing P1 a massive edge across the series.
Alright — Renekton and Elise complete the draft.
Gen.G Gaming snagged Aatrox early. But they still have to be careful top.
Game 3 ban-pick. P1 took champions that could seize an edge through top and jungle.
Is Jimin actually insane?!
And then Game 3. Jimin’s Renekton took massive trade advantages from the opening minutes.
You just have to take that.
An absolutely clean dive.
On the opposite diagonal, P1’s bot lane survived a gank. Game 3 was ahead from the early game too.
Oh — Arin!
Renekton, Renekton!
P1’s mid laner Arin got hit by enemy Taliyah’s CC — and in a flash Renekton crashed in and the teamfight ignited.
They've exploded!
Gen.G’s top laner Aatrox vanished in an instant. Jinx’s ultimate found its mark, and P1’s fully grown ADC Jinx started sprinting.
Triple kill! Quadra kill!
Gen.G Academy is down!
Game 3 didn’t even feel like it needed a Baron.
GG!
P1 Academy advances to the winners' bracket!
Clap! Clap! Clap! Clap! Clap!
Applause filled the Hongdae arena.
P1 Academy has been absolutely dominant this season.
Was this their eighth match? Every P1 Academy game has been sold out, and they’re showing exactly why they’ve captured the attention of not just Challengers fans, but the entire SCK audience.
P1 Academy takes a 3–0 victory over Gen.G Esports Academy in Playoffs Round 2 and advances to the winners’ bracket. That’ll do it for the broadcast.
As if the afterglow refused to fade, the P1 fans who had filled the arena showed no intention of leaving.
2031 SCK Spring Playoffs.
At the end of Playoffs Round 1, first-seed Maehwa Life selected fourth-seed C-Plus Dia. Second-seed P1 was automatically matched against third-seed Gen.G Esports.
Maehwa Life crushed C-Plus 3–1, and P1 took down Gen.G 3–2. In the winners’ bracket match that followed, Maehwa Life casually swept P1 3–0 and advanced to the finals.
In the losers’ bracket, Gen.G Gaming scraped past C-Plus Dia 3–2 in a nail-biter. That set up the final gauntlet for a finals berth: P1 versus Gen.G Esports.
“Wait, how did it end up like this?”
“Ah — he got caught farming raptors.”
“If he takes those, at least he gets stage presence though.”
If Spoon gets caught out here—!
This is massive.
“·····”
Jimin was watching P1’s first-team finals qualification match with his teammates.
They’re strong.
Jimin genuinely believed P1’s first team was strong. But Gen.G Esports looked like they had found another gear today — form that was peaking at exactly the right time.
P1 had dragged it to Game 5, but the ADC getting caught just now looked devastating.
Gwen! Gwen!
Gwen is invulnerable!
And in Game 5, Gen.G’s top laner Gunt was running wild on Gwen.
“Was Gunt always this good?”
“He’s actually cracking.”
Gunt and Blur — top laners who had earned solid reviews even on mid-to-lower-tier teams last season. “Gunt the Brute.” “Blur the Hexagon.” At least so far, Gen.G’s choice was looking like the right one. A performance that made it clear why Gen.G had replaced Hanjo — the top laner who had reached back-to-back Spring and Summer finals last year and Worlds semis.
Jinzzao is going down.
Can Ezreal stop this? Can he stop this?
“This one’s hard.”
“Ah·····”
“It’s over.”
Jimin wasn’t the cynical type — but those were the only words that came out.
Gen.G Esports crawled out of hell! After three straight Game 5 thrillers, they advance to the finals!
Is it Maehwa versus Gen.G again, no matter how the wheel turns?
P1’s revival remains incomplete for now.
The SCK finals matchup that had persisted for years — Gen.G versus Maehwa Life. And this time, nothing changed.
“I’m thirsty.”
“·····”
While Jimin watched the celebrating Gen.G players and the tearful P1 fans, Kang Jun stepped out of the practice room cracking open a zero cola.
Ah. Right.
Separate from the first team failing to reach the finals, Jimin registered that he and his teammates were only one step away from their own championship trophy.
P1’s first team had lost to the same Gen.G they had already beaten once in the playoffs multi-game series. That meant his own team could lose in the finals too.
“·····”
We have to.
Win Challengers. Close out this thrilling season. That was what Jimin wanted.